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The New Zealand School Journal at the Time of World War 1

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The New Zealand School Journal at the Time of World War 1 Political indoctrination through myth building: The New Zealand School Journal at the time of World War 1 Carol Mutch, Rosemary Bingham, Lynette Kingsbury, and Maria Perreau https://doi.org/10.18296/cm.0031 Abstract As the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of World War 1 draw to a close, it is timely to reflect on what we have learnt about that time in our history. This study used the New Zealand School Journal as a data source to investigate what school children were learning about the war at the time. In this article, we discuss the overt and covert messages that New Zealand school children were given about their relationship, first, to the British Empire and, second, to a new distinct New Zealand identity. The World War 1 acts as a pivot point from which to examine the change from myths surrounding the British Empire to a new set of myths springing from the Gallipoli campaign. Our analysis of the School Journal at this time highlights the possible ways in which curricula and curriculum resources can be manipulated and used for political indoctrination. Introduction Since 2014, New Zealand has been commemorating the 100th anniversary of World War 1. A plethora of news items, magazine articles, books, films, documentaries, and teaching resources has been published to coincide with the commemorations (see, Mutch & Cameron-Lewis, 2017). It has been hard to separate the facts from the hype. The long-held view of the Gallipoli campaign forging a new New Zealand identity endures alongside that of the brave Anzac soldier who epitomised the best of New Zealand manhood (Bingham, 2017; Carlyon, 2011; Eldred-Grigg, 2010; King, 2007; Mutch & Cameron-Lewis, 2017; Phillips, 1996; Pugsley, 1990). The statistics, however, tell a darker story—that approximately one in 10 New Zealanders went to war and, of those, one in four died or was seriously injured (Phillips, 1996). 102 Curriculum Matters 14: 2018 Political indoctrination through myth building In 2014, we sought funding to use early issues of the New Zealand School Journal as source material to examine the way in which the war was portrayed to school children of the day as part of a wider study titled, “Teaching about war: Yesterday and today” (see Mutch, 2017). In this article, we discuss the overt and covert messages contained within the School Journal’s contents. We found that, from as early as 1907, when the School Journal was first launched, children were fed a steady diet of rhetoric that exhorted them to be loyal and dutiful citizens of the British Empire and for whom there was no greater glory than self-sacrifice. When war was declared in 1914, some of the younger men who signed up would already have been primed to serve the Empire through their classroom reading material. As the war proceeded, reports in the School Journal continued the themes of courage, honour, heroism, and self-sacrifice despite the horrific toll that the war was taking. We observed, however, in the late 1920s, a shift in the School Journal from the pre-war rhetoric of duty to the Empire to New Zealand forging its own mythological rhetoric. The findings from our study serve to highlight the ways in which curricula and curriculum resources can be manipulated, knowingly or unknowingly, by those in power for political purposes. The New Zealand School Journal The New Zealand School Journal was established in 1907 to provide reading material in support of the newly reformed primary school curriculum. Initiated by the-then Inspector-General of Schools, George Hogben, the School Journal was published with the aim of providing curriculum content reflective of New Zealand children’s interests and experiences (Hucker, 1979; Malone, 1973; O’Brien, 2007). In 1914, it was made compulsory reading material in state schools (Malone, 1973). As the Department of Education’s only publication for children until 1939, the School Journal has had a wide influence on the education of New Zealand children over many decades (Malone, 1973; O’Brien, 2007). Hogben, a liberal imperialist, who believed the Empire to be a civilising force with a high moral duty, saw education as an instrument of social change. Ideals of strength and moral virtue were attainable through discipline, obedience, and self-sacrifice. His reforms aligned with new educational movements that aimed to foster in school children a love and attachment to their country, beginning with the local and familiar and expanding Curriculum Matters 14: 2018 103 Mutch, Bingham, Kingsbury, and Perreau outwards to the development of an imperial patriotic spirit (Malone, 1973; Patrick, 2009). The School Journal was tasked with this imperative. The first edition was published on 9 May 1907. It was a multi-subject journal, focusing on literature, history, geography, civics, moral instruction, science, and health. It was provided at three age levels and published monthly from May to November (and from February to November from 1908 onwards). Content included nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photographs, and illustrations. The journals were provided free to all children in state-funded schools or at a minimal cost to those in private schools. Children each had their own copy which they could use in the classroom and later take home. November issues were larger than usual, so children could continue reading over the Christmas holidays (Ewing, 1970; O’Brien, 2007). Study context and theory With the anniversary of World War 1 having recently taken centre stage in New Zealand currently, it is timely to reflect on the events, how they were portrayed at the time, and how we view them with hindsight. The year 2015 marked the centenary of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the legend of the rugged and heroic Anzac figure was born, and November 2018 marked the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice. It is in the context of the anniversary commemorations that this School Journal project was undertaken. Our study examined how World War 1 was portrayed to New Zealand primary school children, through their main cross-curricular resource, the School Journal. As a significant adjunct to the prescribed curriculum, the School Journal provides a rich source of information on the values and perspectives of the times. We view the early School Journal as an historically situated, socially constructed, and politically infused curriculum artefact. Our approach to curriculum is consistent with many curriculum scholars who look beyond policy and prescription to view curriculum as a multi- layered and contested concept (Apple, 1979; Kridel, 2013; Mutch, 2009; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995). Our particular interest is in how the curriculum of the day is interpreted and disseminated in curriculum resources, such as the School Journal, and, in this case, how it reflects the political ideologies of the time. 104 Curriculum Matters 14: 2018 Political indoctrination through myth building While it could be argued that a country’s curriculum and its accompanying content resources, such as textbooks, should reflect the society of the day, many historians and curriculum theorists argue that curriculum materials are not neutral. They ask, “What content is selected, by whom, and whose interests are being served?” (Apple, 1979; Foster & Crawford, 2006; Kridel, 2013; Pinar et al., 1995). To answer these questions, researchers have gone on to examine curriculum texts and resources more closely, exposing censorship, propaganda, and political indoctrination (see, for example, Foster & Crawford, 2006; Kridel, 2013; Matusevich, 2006). Their findings highlight what is called, in curriculum terms, the hidden or null curriculum (Apple, 1979; Kridel, 2013; Pinar et al., 1995). Propaganda and indoctrination are contested terms (Kridel, 2013; Peterson, 2007). Kridel (2013) claims that propaganda in education has no precise definition because it is very situational. He states, “Any act of selecting curricular experiences involves some form of the imposition of values” (p.163) and could include instruction, indoctrination, or hegemony. The use of propaganda in education is not something existing only in the past. It is present today through the commercialisation of education, in which the public and schools have become complicit. In contrast to propaganda, Kridel suggests, “indoctrination often represents a more one-directional focused act that serves to ‘foster’ ideology and/or to punish non-acceptance” (2013, p. 164). Peterson (2007) puts the responsibility for indoctrination on the teacher—stating that indoctrination is the result of particular content, taught in particular ways to lead to particular outcomes; that is, to get students to hold beliefs in a nonrational and noncritical manner. Snook (1972) claims that for teaching to be indoctrination, there must be intent, or the desire to get students to hold these beliefs regardless of evidence to the contrary. Foster and Crawford (2006) hold the curriculum more responsible, describing it as a battleground in which interested parties battle for domination over what is legitimate content. Matusevich (2006) also includes curriculum resources, particularly man dated textbooks, as sites of contestation, where officials engage knowingly in indoctrination and censorship. Political indoctrination is a loaded concept with mostly negative connotations (Callan & Arena, 2009). It is often associated with former totalitarian regimes, such as Hitler’s Germany (Callan & Arena, 2009) or Franco’s Spain (Mahamud, Curriculum Matters 14: 2018 105 Mutch, Bingham, Kingsbury, and Perreau 2016). An examination of the field reveals many examples on the negative side of the ledger. Lall (2008) investigated the way in which government authorities in both India and Pakistan each rewrote their curricula to position the other country as antagonistic; Burdman (2003) examined the way in which Palestinian children were indoctrinated with the idea of martyrdom; Nelson (2015) explored the way in which Putin’s regime rehabilitated the image of Stalin in contemporary Russian high-school textbooks; Lee (2010) researched the way non-North Koreans, particularly Americans, are portrayed in North Korean textbooks.
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